It is known that in small-diameter knitting machine for production of hosiery or sock goods highly elastic knitting material is introduced to the knitwork, for example rubber covered by natural or synthetic materials. This yarn is fed to needles positively by known thread feeders.
Also, at the start of the closed toe knitting method directly on the machine, this elastic thread is fed during the reciprocal movement of the needle cylinder during the make-up, which needle cylinder executes a greater swing than what represent the knitting needles for technological reasons. The elastic yarn is introduced through a known tensioning device, which tensioning device extracts this yarn in stretched state off the knitting needles during the reverse swing of the needle cylinder and then the tensioning device feeds the yarn again into the knitting feed during knitting. When the feeding of elastic yarn is finished, the yarn is captured by controlled holder and cut off by fixed knife.
A disadvantage of this configuration is that for every knitting feed it is necessary to have a controlled holder and a knife, what, when a greater number of fed elastic yarns is required, puts high demands on positioning of the holder and the knife on the dial. Another disadvantage is high demand on design of the tensioning device, which tensioning device is required to reliably compensate tension in the elastic yarn.
It is an object of this invention to remove said disadvantages by a simple method.